Assessment of the NIH-supported relative citation ratio as a measure of research productivity among 1687 academic neurological surgeons

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title>OBJECTIVE</jats:title><jats:p>Publication metrics such as the Hirsch index (h-index) are often used to evaluate and compare research productivity in academia. The h-index is not a field-normalized statistic and can therefore be dependent on overall rates of publication and citation within specific fields. Thus, a metric that adjusts for this while measuring individual contributions would be preferable. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has developed a new, field-normalized, article-level metric called the “relative citation ratio” (RCR) that can be used to more accurately compare author productivity between fields. The mean RCR is calculated as the total number of citations per year of a publication divided by the average field-specific citations per year, whereas the weighted RCR is the sum of all article-level RCR scores over an author’s career. The present study was performed to determine how various factors, such as academic rank, career duration, a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree, and sex, impact the RCR to analyze research productivity among academic neurosurgeons.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>METHODS</jats:title><jats:p>A retrospective data analysis was performed using the iCite database. All physician faculty affiliated with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)–accredited neurological surgery programs were eligible for analysis. Sex, career duration, academic rank, additional degrees, total publications, mean RCR, and weighted RCR were collected for each individual. Mean RCR and weighted RCR were compared between variables to assess patterns of analysis by using SAS software version 9.4.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>RESULTS</jats:title><jats:p>A total of 1687 neurosurgery faculty members from 125 institutions were included in the analysis. Advanced academic rank, longer career duration, and PhD acquisition were all associated with increased mean and weighted RCRs. Male sex was associated with having an increased weighted RCR but not an increased mean RCR score. Overall, neurological surgeons were highly productive, with a median RCR of 1.37 (IQR 0.93–1.97) and a median weighted RCR of 28.56 (IQR 7.99–85.65).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>CONCLUSIONS</jats:title><jats:p>The RCR and its derivatives are new metrics that help fill in the gaps of other indices for research output. Here, the authors found that advanced academic rank, longer career duration, and PhD acquisition were all associated with increased mean and weighted RCRs. Male sex was associated with having an increased weighted, but not mean, RCR score, most likely because of historically unequal opportunities for women within the field. Furthermore, the data showed that current academic neurosurgeons are exceptionally productive compared to both physicians in other specialties and the general scientific community.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Academic Rhinologists’ Online Rating and Perception, Scholarly Productivity, and Industry Payments

“…1,32 Additionally, the total number of publications or H-index may not be the best measure for research productivity, since obtaining research grants, longitudinal basic science projects, or higher impact research are also important measures of scholarly productivity, but not accounted for in this manuscript. Furthermore, the H-index is not the solitary measure of research productivity, as other similar indices have been utilized for similar purposes before, namely m-index, 30 Relative Citation Ratio, 33 and Radicchi index. 34 This is in addition to the fact that Scopus and/or other sources for H-index (e.g., Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate) can provide conflicting results.…”

Fractal dimension analogous scale-invariant derivative of Hirsch’s index

“…In general, research field is a major factor of the outcome of citation, for example in Qian et al (2017) it is shown that even the sub-fields within computer science have significant effect on the citation rates. Various field-normalized bibliometric methods are devised and utilized to compensate such variation for the purpose of fair and accurate evaluation (see Ahlgren and Sjögårde 2015;Bornmann and Haunschild 2016;Reddy et al 2020).…”

Evaluation of the Relative Citation Ratio Among Academic Orthopedic Hand Surgeons: A Novel Measure of Research Impact

“…The h-index combines frequency of publication and frequency of citation into a single numerical value, which often disadvantages younger authors with few but impactful publications and prioritizes quantity over quality [ 8 ]. Further, because the h-index is not field-normalized, its value is skewed by the size of the academic specialty, which limits the ability to make accurate cross-specialty comparisons [ 8 , 9 ]. For example, those publishing in a larger field, such as internal medicine, are likely to accrue a higher number of citations than publications within a niche subspecialty field.…”

“…The RCR is calculated by dividing the total number of citations per year of a publication divided by the average citations per year received by NIH-funded papers in the same field [ 13 ]. Dynamic field-normalization through the use of a co-citation network of an article separates the RCR from traditional metrics and allows for a more accurate comparison of research impact across academic specialties [ 9 , 14 ]. Author-level derivatives of the RCR include mean RCR and weighted RCR and are calculated by taking the mean and sum, respectively, of all article-level RCR scores pertaining to a single researcher [ 13 ].…”